I have previously spilled my dreams onto these pages about a partial retirement in Scotland. No self-respecting golfer could dream otherwise. I am mindful that dreams, for many reasons, often exceed our grasp. A few years ago, I plunked down a couple hundred dollars and became an overseas member of the Crail Golfing Society, thereby almost forcing myself to make the trip across the Atlantic on an annual basis to play the eight rounds of golf on Crail’s 36 holes beside the North Sea to which I am entitled on an annual basis. For now, that is about as close as I can get to living in Scotland, at least part time.
        In an article the other day, the website Top Retirements.com pitched Scotland as a potential retirement location but added the appropriate caveats about moving to a foreign (non-American) land. I recommend the article to those fellow golfers who might be contemplating a Scottish relocation. The major obstacle to an American living in Scotland is that, except for a few of us –- those with Scottish ancestry or a couple million dollars to invest in a Scottish business –- residency is capped at six months per year.
The elements of seaside golf in Scotland in one photo at the Crail Golfing Society; pot bunker, sloping green, gorse and the ocean.
        No problem for those who might otherwise live seasonally in two homes, as friends of mine do in the States; six months and a day in Florida, to qualify for its non-existent state income tax, and the rest of the year in Connecticut, a high-tax state. Those with the means, inclination and love of golf could just substitute Scotland in summer for Connecticut or any other cold-winter state. I daresay that real estate in a small Scottish town near great golf will be more reasonably priced than comparable housing in most northern US states, and renting an apartment for five to six months annually is also a viable and cost-effective approach.
        Tax rules for foreign residents in Scotland and the rest of the UK became a bit complicated with a new tax law enacted a few years ago; it is best to consult an expert or at least do your research online before getting serious about a part-year retirement in Scotland. But the effort will be worth it for those who can imagine a relaxing and healthy lifestyle – most Scottish layouts require walking -- and cool summers on some of the greatest golf courses in the world.
        You can read the Top Retirements article here.
North Berwick Golf Club is one of the coolest layouts on the planet, but also cool was that I rode the train from Edinburgh to North Berwick with my clubs in tow.

        This is the time of year that any of us who write about golf and golf communities receive press releases from golf communities touting their placement on Where to Retire magazine’s list of the “50 Best Master-Planned Communities in the U.S.” That sounds pretty good when you consider that there are thousands of master-planned communities in the United States.

Simply Not The Best
        The fact is that the universe for Where to Retire’s choices is probably a couple hundred communities at most, and a fairer title for the award would be “50 Best Master-Planned Communities that Advertise in Our Magazine.” For example, the only two ads on the Where to Retire website page that lists the Top 50 are from two of the winners.
        If you want to know which communities made the Top 50, you can access the list by clicking here.
        I am not going to disparage those communities in this space because I have visited some of them and they are of high quality, including Brunswick Forest, Carolina Colours and Compass Pointe; I have even helped clients purchase homes in a few. And according to some communities I spoke with – see below – they were assured advertising in the magazine did not necessarily mean they were going to make the list.

Customer Disservice
        Many retirees rely on Where to Retire for guidance, thinking the magazine makes a purely editorial judgment about the best communities in the land. If you choose to consider and visit only the communities on the Where to Retire list, you will be missing dozens of others that will meet your requirements and that, possibly, exceed the qualities of the relatively few on the magazine’s list.
        It is understandable that some communities choose to advertise in Where to Retire in order to get their names in front of the magazine’s 200,000 readers, many of whom are looking for a place to live. Such exposure is the purpose of good marketing. But Where to Retire, which bills itself as “The Authority on Retirement Relocation,” does its readers a disservice when it fails to make clear that its Top 50 are culled substantially from its advertisers.

No Quid Pro Quo Here
        To avoid any quid pro quo – “advertise and we will name you to our Top 50” – Where to Retire’s sales reps are coy about the connection between ad spend and the list.
        “My sales rep heavily encouraged my advertising,” one community’s marketing executive told me, “but made it clear that advertising would make no bearing on the decision to include [our community] in the list. [However] I [later] answered a very long questionnaire and did a telephone interview. I also had to give the names of three residents for an interview.” This marketing executive told me her community found out it was in the Top 50 the day the magazine published the list a couple of weeks ago.
        A general manager from another community that I know well and admire was not sure why his community made the list.
        “We do advertise in WTR but on a pretty limited basis, less than we did in the past,” he told me. “I suspect, but do not know, that the pool of the best is picked from among those communities that advertise, and perhaps those that have in the past advertised, and perhaps those they are hoping would advertise.”
        When you see a press release from a community touting its status as a Top 50 Where to Retire community, understand that they paid for the honor whether they knew it at the time or not. Caveat emptor, dear reader.